


Something to Treasure (Something We Can't Hold)

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: Twelve Fics of Christmas 2020 [12]
Category: The Flash (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Barry Allen is a softie for the Rogues, Childhood Memories, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Miracles, Christmas Presents, Gen, Leonard & Lisa Snart Sibling Feels, Lewis Snart's A+ Parenting, Post-Episode: s02e09 Running to Stand Still, References to Canon Events, character backstory, light banter, references to comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28293162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: A treasure lost from the past becomes a Christmas miracle in the present.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Leonard Snart, Barry Allen & Lisa Snart, Barry Allen/Leonard Snart (possibly implied), Lisa Snart & Leonard Snart
Series: Twelve Fics of Christmas 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043328
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	Something to Treasure (Something We Can't Hold)

**Author's Note:**

> A couple quick notes:  
> 1) this piece references Lisa's past as an ice skater from the comics and assumes Barry is very aware of this fact.  
> 2) can be read as budding ColdFlash or just platonic between them.  
> 3) references to Len and Lisa's abusive childhood are here, but nothing graphic. I promised pure fluff in this Christmas series.
> 
> I'd like to dedicate this piece to Sandrine Shaw - your comments never fail to bring a little smile to my face, and you remain one of my favorite ColdFlash authors.
> 
> A very Merry Christmas Eve, one and all. I look forward to the year ahead and being able to share it with you all. :)
> 
> Title is from "As Long As There's Christmas".

At first blush, it’s almost as innocuous as can be: a pendant which might have been intended for a young girl’s birthday or other holiday celebration, hung on a simple chain. To say the years have been unkind would be a gross understatement: the original gold is dulled from lack of proper care and it’s half a miracle no further damage was caused to the design with how carelessly it was shoved in a overflowing box of evidence collected from the pawn shop – a long overdue arrest given the owner’s illustrious history and even worse reputation in satisfied customers.

Stretching out a crick in his neck, Barry allows half a moment of reprieve from the task which has taken up his entire day, then gets back to work. It’s Christmas Eve, everyone wants to go home on time, and there will be hell to pay if the resident lab rat is the reason _one officer_ can’t get home to carve the roast. Never mind that Barry was promised assistance from the interns or even a couple desk-duty officers: something about a drop in the barometric pressure and impending bad weather and blah-blah-blah. For Barry, it boils down to him picking up the slack (again) and Mardon plotting to snow the city in until New Year’s (again), which means Barry will be the last one to leave on Christmas Eve and have to run home in three feet of snow.

Ho, ho, freaking _ho_.

Bad mood aside, there is something about this little pendant that makes Barry smile a little. The detail on the figurine, a female ice skater with arms arched high in elegant fashion, is fine craftsmanship, down to the soft tumble of curls down the back, the sway of her skirt, and the perfect point of her skates. The exterior ring is pretty standard, nothing but an ornament enclosed around the star feature…

…and there’s something written on it.

Barry tries a magnifying glass, but it’s no good. The writing is lost to the lack of care piled on by the years. The most basic option quickly lost, he goes straight to the alternative: clean it up.

Ten minutes and a combination of hot water, salt, and baking soda later, Barry mentally applauds himself for a job well-done: the necklace has never looked better. The little figurine shines, the chain gleams, and the engraved lettering on the inside is as if showroom new: elegant script spelling out G-O-L-D-E-N —

Barry’s spine cracks when he snaps himself upright. Forcing himself at normal speed, he grabs the necklace and beelines down to interrogation room 2, where the shop owner has been a residing guest for the last three hours.

“Hey,” Barry nearly knocks over Detective Brown when he crashes through the door, “Martin, right? You say you know where _all_ your pieces are from?”

“What the hell, Allen?!” Brown snaps, “You not have enough to—”

“I remember _every_ piece that comes through my door.” Martin says with no small smugness; he adjusts the knock-off Italian blazer, smooths his combover, and leans forward like they’re negotiating a sale, “Crap with names, but I know my inventory like the back of my hand.”

“Good.” Barry holds up the necklace, “Tell me about this one.”

Credit given where due, Martin takes one look at the pendant and sighs, “Ah, yeah. I’ve had that little thing for…god damn, must be over a decade now.” He takes a closer look, then grins at Barry, “Damn, boy, you clean that up all nice? Should’ve come work for me – I’d give you a solid—”

“Yes, I cleaned it up. No, I don’t have time to work out a potential change in career. Story. Now.”

“I like your style – no nonsense. We’ll get back to the job-thing later.” Martin nods down at the piece, “So, I like I said – ten-some years ago, I get this deadbeat who spins me a yarn about needing to knock a loan shark off his back. He hands over a box. Most of it’s junk, and I tell him so. Then I see the necklace. Solid twenty-four caret, right there. Tell him he can take the box of crap and a couple hundred for the shiny bit. He takes it and I never see him again. Little while later, I’m figuring out a solid price tag for the thing, and I see the engraving. Well, now I’m saying to myself, ‘what a freakin’ sweetheart,’ right? See, I’m thinking he pawned something that was his kid’s, right? But it’s a cash deal and I’m out on both ends: don’t know who to sell it back to, and the writing means no one wants to buy. I hope the guy couldn’t pay his debts and got whacked.”

“Oh, he paid his debts alright…” Barry mutters, almost too low to be overheard, and straightens up, “I appreciate you, sir. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Get back to me on the job offer, kid – we could make helluva team, you and me.”

Barry waves a hand, a gesture to be interpreted however the man might wish, and leaves with Brown yelling at his back. As luck would have it, the captain is waiting outside the door looking very hard like he’s _trying_ to not smirk, which is an improvement from the sour-lipped face he usually makes when Barry enters the room.

“Any particular reason for all that, Allen?”

“I plead the Fifth.” Barry quips, then drops back into a more serious expression as he holds out the pendant, “Also…may I take this out of evidence, after I’ve cataloged and documented everything accordingly?”

Singh blinks but doesn’t outright refuse (again, an improvement), “I will insist you answer as to why for this one, Allen.”

“I know who the real owner is,” he answers softly, thumbing over the ring, “and I think she would very much like to have it back.”

Again, a pause isn’t an immediate refusal, so Barry tenderly pushes with a pleading, “It’s Christmas, Captain.”

That one earns him some minor exasperation, but then Singh nods and adds, “Hurry up and finish with everything. It’s already coming down out there.”

That’s a polite way of describing the flurry of fat flakes peppering the windows. One of these days, Barry is going to have a word with Mark about his insistence on shutting down the entire city just for an ‘inspired idea’.

***

The issue of how someone found the current safehouse, let alone got in and out without anyone knowing, is presently beside the point. A girl is entitled to her curious nature, and when Lisa walks in to find a little red velvet box on her bed, neatly tied with a sparkly gold ribbon, she is definitely more curious than anything else. Besides, if it _was_ a thief, it was a bad one: you don’t break into someone’s house and leave instead of take.

A handwritten note is tucked under the ribbon. She sits down, smooths the paper across her lap, and frowns a little as the message lays itself out in slightly cramped print:

_Heard you’ve been missing this for a few years. Thought it was time you got it back._

_Also, you guys really need a better lock on that front door._

Curiosity no longer a mild poke as it is a nagging at the back of her throat, Lisa briefly turns her attention to the box. The ribbon drops with ease and the box itself isn’t wrapped. The lid opens, and her heart shoots straight into her throat.

It's everything she remembers: an ice skater posed within a single ring of gold. Nearly choking around the lump in her throat, she fumbles the necklace out of the box and urgently seeks out the engraved lettering, hoping and praying and…yes. _Yes_ , there it is: _Golden Girl_ , staring back at her now just as when she was sixteen, a proud first-time Olympic gold medalist and weeping tears of delight at the gift her brother had just placed in her hands.

Not even two months later, it was gone: pillaged to pay off Lewis’ gambling debts. She’d sobbed for days. Searched for weeks with the barest information about the pawn shops Lewis might have used – with the reality that he could have easily sold it on the streets with no paper trail. Eventually, she gave up and braved through the aching hole in her heart and forced a smile for her brother, promising that as long as she had him, she didn’t need a trinket or flashy bit of jewelry. A lie, and Lenny knew it, but eventually the little pendant became one of many buried memories of their wasted childhood.

How, after all this time…and who…?

Blinking furiously to clear the dampness in her eyes, Lisa turns back to the final lines:

_There’s a bag of mini marshmallows in your pantry. Tell your brother, the next time he breaks into my house and steals the cocoa, he can bring his own condiments or zip it._

_Merry Christmas,_

_Flash_


End file.
